


IKEA

by gateship



Series: Avengers Assemble [24]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: AVPM References, Avengers putting furniture together, Domestic Avengers, F/M, IKEA, IKEA Furniture, Tony doesn't approve of the shopping trip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-20 06:58:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11915574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gateship/pseuds/gateship
Summary: Now that everyone's moved into the Avengers Tower and has realized they don't actually have enough furniture for the space, ... It's time for IKEA.





	1. Chapter 1

There had been a vicious debate about the best way to get to IKEA from the Tower. Some people had wanted to go by the water taxi to Brooklyn, others had argued about the potential literal truckloads of stuff they would be bringing back, and Tony didn’t understand why they wanted to go and refused to be a part of any of it.

Regardless of which route they took it was still going to take almost an hour to get there so the cars and trucks plan won out. Especially once the high temperatures outside were taken into account. Nobody wanted to haul stuff across New York with those temperatures.

 

“I still don’t understand why I’m here,” Steve said as the group made their way up the escalator to the second floor. “Or how this place works.”

“You’re the muscle,” Natasha said.

“This is a terrible map,” Thor said, frowning down at it.

“I thought I was the muscle,” Clint said.

“No, you need dishes,” Carolyn said. “Steve’s place is fine the way it is and he must experience this 21st century tradition. I mean, you also need furniture Clint, but let’s be honest. You aren’t going to buy any.”

“Are we getting food?” Jane asked.

“They have food here?” Steve asked. 

“Is anybody an IKEA family member?” Jan asked.

“What does that even mean?” Steve asked. He looked thoroughly confused about the entire experience and they hadn’t even reached the furniture section yet.

“We’re good. The school’s got a number,” Carolyn said. “I could go for some meatballs though.”

“Why am _I_ here?” Hank asked.

“So, I can pretend to listen to your input,” Jan said. “Obviously.”

“You said we don’t need anything when we moved in,” Hank said.

“Well, I changed my mind,” Jan said. “We have a whole mess of empty space.”

“Everyone has empty space,” Steve said. “Most of my space is empty.”

“This is going to be the best,” Darcy said. “Dear God, I wish I could post about this.”

“Well, the furniture needs to get put together later,” Clint said as the group reached the top of the escalator. “That’s an option. You could also just take pictures of Thor to post later.”

“Valid point,” Darcy said.

“Alright, everybody hang a left through the shortcut. It’s meatball time,” Carolyn said.

“Do we have to?” Natasha asked.

“I want meatballs,” Clint said.

“I want cake. Do you think they’ll have cake right now?” Jan asked.

“We should have come earlier for breakfast,” Clint said.

“Why do they have food? And why do they serve breakfast?” Steve asked.

“It’s super cheap and actually better than what you’d expect,” Clint said.

“Have you been to a Walmart or a Target yet?” Jane asked Steve.

“Oh, that’ll be easy compared to this,” Darcy said. “Anybody else hungry or is it just us?”

“I do not understand this place,” Steve said mostly to himself as everyone who wanted food collected it and paid.

“So, what’s our plan of attack?” Jan asked once they were all seated.

“I’ll keep track of all the item names and locations as we shop,” Carolyn said, brandishing a tablet. “I figured we’d just go section by section. I guess we can grab a bag now, but most of the stuff to pick up is on the first floor.”

“We have to go section by section?” Clint asked. “That’s going to take forever.”

“And we have Tony Stark’s credit card,” Natasha said.

“Cool. We can stay,” Clint said.

“Does anyone have a list of what they need?” Jan asked. “I do, but I’m sure that I’ll walk out with stuff I don’t need.”

“Constantly the IKEA problem,” Darcy said.

“And since I assume that nobody noted down the dimensions of their spaces, I have the blueprints on my tablet,” Carolyn said.

“I hadn’t even thought of that,” Jane said. “Good call.”

 

Once they’d finished eating they headed back to the starting point of the IKEA maze: living rooms.

“Does anyone actually need a couch?” Jane asked.

“Me,” Jan said. “So, Hank, we need to sit on all of them.”

“They have tiny rooms,” Thor said, peering at the different living room set ups.

“It’s to show you what goes together and give you inspiration,” Jane said.

“We should go to Home Goods, TJ Maxx, Pier One, and Target too,” Jan said.

“No,” Hank was quick to say. “That is not happening.”

“Are you really going to sit on every couch? And why do they have so many seating options? Isn’t this a bit much for just one manufacturer?” Steve asked.

“Ikea makes an ungodly variety of furniture,” Darcy said. “Isn’t there some sort of statistics about kids in Europe conceived on Ikea beds or mattresses or something?”

“There’s statistics about that?” Steve asked.

“We’ll only test the ones that match my décor plans,” Jan said. She shrugged. “But we have a lot of new spaces to fill so I don’t know.”

“Hey,” Clint called from down a few couches. “Do I need a couch?”

“You need all sorts of furniture,” Carolyn said. “But you are not going to buy anything.”

“Why would you say that?” Clint asked.

“Because we know you,” Natasha said.

“Thor? You okay?” Jane asked, looking over at Thor. He was peering curiously at the tags on the products.

“What are those names?” he asked.

“Uh, places I think,” Jane said. “But it’s Swedish regardless.”

“There’s some sort of system to it,” Hank said. “I don’t remember what it is, though.”

“Actually, Hank,” Jan said, getting up from the couch she was testing. “I don’t know if any of these are big enough. I was envisioning an **L** shaped couch for the living room space.”

“They’ve got a couple of bigger ones on the website,” Carolyn said. “What kind of material are you looking for?”

“I mean, I can make things bigger,” Hank suggested.

“Cool, not gonna happen,” Jan said without even looking at her soon-to-be husband.

“Is that a thing he offers to do frequently?” Jane asked. “Because he offered to shrink things when we were moving.”

“I have the ability, so why not use it?” Hank asked. “Nobody ever takes me up on it.”

“You know very well how many experiments there were to figure out what materials actually worked both ways. Some fabrics and materials don’t respond well,” Jan said.

“I kinda like this one,” Clint said, standing in front of a brightly colored monstrosity.

“Do you actually like that?” Steve asked. “It’s very…bright.”

“You get that and I’ll set it on fire,” Natasha said idly. She was wandering in and out of the showrooms.

Clint frowned in her direction. “I like it.”

Thor peered down at the tag, “Klippan,” he said.

“It’s a slipcover,” Jane said, looking at the tag as well. “And it’s $50 for just the slipcover.”

“Well I’ll definitely set that on fire,” Natasha said.

“So, we can stop looking at couches now, right?” Hank asked. “Nobody’s getting a couch so we can stop looking.”

“Well, let me see what’s on the website,” Jan said, moving over to Carolyn and the tablet.

Hank groaned and collapsed down into the nearest couch.

“Can we, like, move to the next section?” Darcy asked. “Because I do actually need bookshelves.”

“Bookshelves,” Hank said, rocketing up. “Jan, I’m going to go look at those.”

“Dark tone wood, doors with some glass, space for a 60 inch wall mounted TV if you wander into media centers,” Jan said.

Hank just stared at her for a few seconds. “Why do we need a media center? We already have one of those! And wait, our TV isn’t 60 inches.”

“Moving into the bedroom,” Jan said.

“Why do we need a TV in the bedroom? We’ve never had one of those before!”

“I did before I moved into your tiny rinky dink apartment,” Jan said. “And I want one again. I want to watch _Project Runway_ in bed with a glass of wine for the drinking game I made up.”

“Wait, you have a _Project Runway_ drinking game?” Carolyn asked.

“Come on,” Jane said, grabbing both Hank and Thor’s arms in her own.

As they headed through to the next section, they heard Jan say something about a viewing party with Carolyn and Pepper once it was back on the air. And then, “Ooh, I like that coffee table!”

“Oh God,” Hank groaned. “She’s going to buy an entire house’s worth of furniture. She literally _just said_ when we moved that a new couch wasn’t a top priority.”

“It’ll all be fine,” Darcy said. “Let’s go look at bookshelves for me. And then when Jan’s done with couches she can check out the media centers on her own.”

“I’m coming with even though none of you like my couch,” Clint said, catching up with the other half of the group.

“This is a lot of bookshelves,” Steve said, trailing behind them. “Do they really need to sell this many different styles?”

“The answer is yes and that there’s a lot of everything here,” Jane said. “You got any preferences, Darce?”

“Black. Cheap.”

“Stark’s footing the bill,” Hank said. “Maybe think a bit more expensive.”

“Does he know that’s happening?” Steve asked. “I don’t think it’d be right to use his money if he’s not aware of it.”

“I know inflation’s happened considerably since you were born and that the minimum wage hasn’t risen to meet it, but Stark does indeed have so much money he won’t even notice this,” Darcy said. “Which is kind of terrifying to think of just in terms of comprehending how much money he has.” She shook her head. “Though, to be honest, I’ve just got pretty basic needs and wants when it comes to bookshelves.”

“Media center over there looks nice,” Clint said, gesturing to one set up in the fake living rooms.

Hank glanced over and frowned. “Actually,” he said and wandered over towards it.

“You really only want boring bookshelves?” Clint asked Darcy as Jane and Thor wandered off in one direction and Steve in another.

“Yup. I mean, I just need, like, five bookshelves.”

“I probably need bookshelves if I’m going to move my comic book collection to the new place rather than the storage unit it’s currently in.”

“You have a comic book collection?” Darcy asked, turning to look at him.

“Yeah. A lot. Not mint condition or anything. But I’ve got a variety of stuff. It’s been in storage for a few years now. Just haven’t had the space to bring it out.”

“Huh. I didn’t really have you pegged as a comic book guy,” Darcy said.

“What’d you have me pegged as?” Clint asked.

“Wrestling,” Darcy said after a moment. “Hm, more UFC style or MMA though.”

“Really?” Clint asked. “I don’t like any of those things. Crappy action movies, yes. UFC, no.”

“You like crappy action movies?” Darcy asked. “But everything’s inaccurate.”

“Hey, we make Phil watch bad World War II movies, Natasha gets cheerleading –”

“Why does she get those?”

“The gymnastics involved,” Clint said. “But movies are fun to yell at.”

Darcy did have to agree with that.

“Oh, good job honey,” Jan said from behind them. “I like this one. Will that fit the TV?”

“Measuring tape,” Carolyn said. Darcy turned to see Carolyn literally pull a measuring tape out of her giant bag.

“How much stuff do you have in there?” Jan asked.

“I’m the person that has anything you could need,” Carolyn said. “It’s how I cope with my anxiety. Especially since pregnant people aren’t supposed to take anti-depressants or anti-anxiety medication.”

“Well, then apparently you’re all set and ready for a diaper bag,” Jan said. “Which reminds me, do you have a theme for the baby nursery yet?”

“It’s so difficult to decide because you know infants—”

“Oh look, more bookshelves,” Clint said, pulling Darcy away and towards Jane and Thor. “What do you think of these?”

“I think I’m going with the basic, boring, standard ones.”

“Really?” Jane asked. “You don’t want anything else?”

“Nope. I do dig the corner style one though,” Darcy said. “Carolyn, can I see the blueprints for the dimensions to my room?”

Darcy headed over back towards Carolyn and Jan, leaving Clint with Jane and Thor. Thor crossed his arms across his chest and frowned at Clint. “Uh. Hi,” Clint said.

“Do you have ill intentions towards Darcy?” Thor asked.

“I – what?” Clint asked, taken aback.

“You and Darcy have been flirting,” Jane said. “Thor would like to know if you plan on asking her out.”

“Ah,” Clint said.

“Do you have ill intentions towards Darcy?” Thor repeated.

“What are you talking about?” Steve asked, coming around the corner. “Are you going to ask Darcy out?”

“What are you – I don’t – that’s—”

“Jane, can we make Thor help put the furniture together?” Darcy called.

“Could you say his name any louder?” Jane muttered as she headed over. “It’s not like it’s a common name or anything. And it’s not like he looks like that.”

“Oh, just calm down,” Darcy said. “There are plenty of dudes unironically named Thor.”

Jane just stared at Darcy with half of a glare.

“Fine, whatever. I’ll stop saying his name. Anyways, can we?”

“I don’t think that’s a particularly good idea. There’s already going to be enough complaining because of putting all the furniture together,” Jane said.

“An even better reason to get your boyfriend involved,” Darcy said. She frowned thoughtfully and looked over at him. “He might break the particle board though. Maybe he doesn’t get to do any hammering as ironic as that is?”

 

Passing through the “work” section went by painlessly as nobody needed a desk. There were more than enough desks throughout the Tower and a few might have already gone missing from the various unoccupied labs and offices. Once they reached the kitchen and dining section Clint and Natasha had to practically pry Carolyn away from everything her eyes landed on. Arguments of, “You already have your dream kitchen,” and “You sent Pepper fifteen different kitchen plans before settling on the one you have now. She will literally evict you if you change your mind again,” fell on pretty deaf ears. When the kitchen set ups faded behind them and Carolyn pouting at them all. But they sped through bedrooms and kids despite Clint’s best efforts in the latter department.

Then, of course, the first department on the first floor was the cooking and eating. All the dishes, flatware, glassware, tools, and toys for Carolyn to pour over. Natasha dragged her away to go and get a cart before she could get too invested, calling over her shoulder at Clint, “Don’t forget that you need dishes.”

“Oh, right. I forgot about that,” he said.

“That’s also the IKEA problem,” Darcy said. “You go in for one thing and come out with twenty other things that you don’t need.”

“Just wait until we get to décor. And frames,” Jan said. “I actually need a whole mess of picture frames.”

“Why do we need those?” Hank asked. “We have framed pictures already.”

“I also need those picture rail things,” Jan said. “Oh, those are cute,” she said, getting distracted by something on one of the shelves.

“This is never going to end, is it?” Hank asked. “I thought wedding plans were bad enough, but it’s never going to end. It’s just going to be one thing after another.”

“I heard that,” Jan called.

Hank grumbled under his breath and headed after his fiancée. Carolyn and Natasha arrived a minute later with two carts that had blue IKEA shopping bags hooked to them. Darcy snagged one and headed off with it. Jane and Thor made a move to follow but Thor got distracted by one of the displays. So far, he’d been fascinated by pretty much everything in IKEA. Everyone else had been fascinated by his ability to seemingly pronounce all the product names correctly.

“Have you gotten your dishes yet?” Natasha asked Clint.

“Does it look like I have any dishes?” Clint asked. “And I haven’t forgotten.

“Yes, you did,” Natasha said. “It was the discussion about your dating life that did it.”

“I missed a conversation about his lack of a dating life?” Carolyn asked, looking entirely too gleeful for Clint’s comfort. He most assuredly did _not_ run away from his friends.

As a result, it meant that he essentially ran straight to Darcy, who was putting far too many dishware sets into the shopping bag.

“Is Thor still breaking dishes?” he asked. 

“What? Oh, no we cured him of that in, like… Less than 36 hours,” Darcy said. “This is for Thor’s friends. Because if Volstagg and Fandral show up to stay we’ll need it. Also, Tony didn’t actually stock the break room for us or for you guys despite the fact that he included a dishwasher in both break rooms.”

“There’s a dishwasher in the break room?” Clint asked.

“Have you actually been to the break room for your offices?” Darcy asked.

“Not really since we moved in. And that was mostly because I dumped my stuff there before helping Carolyn and Phil,” Clint said. “Fury’s still got me at the main office most of the time.”

“But the commute to the new offices is less than five minutes,” Darcy said. “Why does he have you trucking out to,” she started to ask but paused. “I don’t actually know where you go to work.”

“There are a few locations in the city, but the main one where Carolyn’s and our old offices are is within walking distance,” Clint explained.

“I bet Carolyn’s pleased with that,” Darcy said.

“Well, the boss thinks that we can all get to the office whenever he calls us up,” Clint said. “We’ll see how that goes down once the crap winter weather starts up. And once she has the baby.”

“I’m overjoyed with my five-minute indoor commute,” Darcy said. She paused and her eyes narrowed. “Should I get coffee mugs too? For either the break rooms or for the Asgardian floor?”

“Eh, that’s --,” Clint began but was interrupted.

“Where’d Steve go?” Natasha asked.

“I’ll go find him!” Jan said.

“Hufflepuffs are very good finders!” Carolyn piped up from somewhere nearby.

“Find!” another voice, one neither Darcy nor Clint recognized, called from a little further away.

“What the hell is a Hufflepuff?” someone else called from the same direction.

Carolyn burst into peals of laughter.

“You’re a Slytherin if you’re anything,” Natasha said.

Thor turned to Jane. “What is a Hufflepuff?” he asked her.

 

The rest of the first floor went by with only a fifteen minutes top in the prints and frames section so Jan could get all the picture frames and ledges she wanted. Carolyn grabbed a few frames too, but she claimed those were for the school rather than for personal use. Apparently, Xavier’s did a variety of different school pictures.

Once they all walked into the warehouse Thor’s eyes widened.

“Holy shit,” Steve said faintly as he stared up at the towering shelving units.

Clint looked at Steve in mock shock. “Such language, sir!”

“Dude, he’s from Brooklyn in the 40s, not a convent,” Darcy said, pushing past him towards yet another cart. “So, how are we going to break this up? Go in a group or divide it up and meet back up at the outdoor space section? Thor and Steve’s muscles are going to be needed the whole time.”

“I resent the implications that I can’t lift things on my own,” Natasha said dryly.

“Jan’s entertainment center is going to be over 100 pounds and I’m sure the box doesn’t have handles,” Darcy said.

“Then Thor or Steve can get that and we can split the list up,” Carolyn said. “I’ll divvy up the list and send it to everyone’s phones. I call Clint for my lifting.”

“Cool, Thor’s with me and Jane,” Darcy said.

Steve ended up going with Jan and Hank to help with the media center. Since all Darcy was getting were her bookshelves, their list included all the bookshelves, even Jan and Hank’s. All in all, it took much less time than anticipated, especially since Jan and Hank had three carts of product all their own. They ended up meeting up at bookshelves where Steve helped Thor finish up.

Once the last box was stacked onto Jan and Hank’s third cart, Steve turned and looked at the other accumulated carts of boxes and things.

“This…is a lot of stuff,” he said. “Do we really need all of this?”

“Well, it’s a little late to go putting it back,” Natasha said.

There were nine carts all together. Three were full of Jan and Hank’s furniture, one for Darcy’s bookshelves, and two more of a combination of people’s things. From their wandering through the first floor they’d accumulated three carts with bags and a stack of Jan’s picture rails before they’d even reached the warehouse. Plus at some point Natasha had gone back and grabbed a rug while nobody noticed.

“Yes,” Jan said. “All of this is necessary. So everyone grab a cart and start pushing. We don’t need to look at the outdoor section since nobody has any actual outdoor space because our floors are so high up. Straight to the registers so we can make Tony pay for all of this.”

“Who the hell is going to put all of this together?” Clint asked, staring at the mass of flat pack bookshelves.

“And why didn’t you just ask for built ins when Tony was designing the place?” Hank asked.

“Because I didn’t,” Jan said. “Let’s move.”

They got more than a few odd looks as they all headed in one group and got into just one register line. A couple of employees tried to shuffle them off to different lines, but they explained that it was all actually one order. That information got them their own line opened up.

“I think we should get more food before we go,” Jan said. “It’s been hours.”

“Steve, you hungry?” Clint asked.

“Usually am, but I can wait until we get home,” he said, shrugging. “I could go get the truck though.”

“I don’t trust you with the truck,” Natasha said. “I will go get the moving truck. Besides, you need to help get stuff into the truck.”

“Seriously, who’s putting all that together?” Darcy asked. “Because you have a ton of stuff.”

“And how are we going to tell what belongs to who?” Jane asked.

Carolyn fished into her bag to reveal a Ziplock bag of sharpies and colored dot stickers. “Choose a color to label your stuff.”

“Why don’t we have a team bonding event in my living room?” Jan asked brightly.

“Well, the medallion says that’s dumb,” Clint said.

“What does that – what are you talking about?” Jan asked.

“It’s team bonding only if we have a sing-a-long viewing,” Darcy said.

“I’m in!” Carolyn said.

“You wouldn’t be doing anything but watching us be miserable,” Clint said. “I don’t want to put any furniture together! I specifically didn’t buy anything that needed to be put together!”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took a lot longer to get out than I thought it would, and I'm sorry for that. I started grad school this past week so that's been a bit of a time suck.

Not long after the Fourth of July party Tony had created his own version of a social media site hosted on his servers. It was as secure as Jarvis’s software, meaning very secure. Which was really a good thing considering the amount of superheroes that had accounts. It was basically Facebook, but without the games or the ads. It also, in true Iron Man fashion, was the same colors as his suit of armor. It was by invitation only, so at this point it was just Avengers, Fantastic Four, X-Men, X-Men friends, and some random SHIELD agents.

So, of course, Clint had posted a picture of their IKEA haul packed into the back of the truck with the caption _Jan thinks this is a team bonding exercise waiting to happen_.

It probably wasn’t a good idea, considering Tony was glowering menacingly at them in front of the elevator once they got back to the Tower. One the positive side, he did have dollys and carts with him, which was not something they’d thought about.

“You all know how I feel about IKEA. I could have gotten you much better furniture,” he said. “Yet you chose to go there anyways. What’s going to what floor?”

“They’re labelled,” Jan said. “Though I think once they’re up there a food and nap break might be in order.”

“I’m in,” Carolyn said.

“You slept on the ride back,” Clint said.

“I’m growing another human. It’s like _Alien_ going on inside my body. I’m exhausted all the time,” Carolyn said.

“That was a lovely visual,” Tony said. “You wanted team building, so that’s what you’re getting. Pepper ordered a mountain of pizza which should be here soon.”

“Wait, you want to build furniture as a team bonding exercise?” Steve asked.

“If you wanted IKEA furniture, you’re going to have to suffer the consequences,” Tony said.

 

Twenty minutes later saw the IKEA haul on the appropriate floors and the Avengers and pizza on Jan and Hank’s floor with the pile of bookshelves and media center. Jan was right in that they would need a larger couch for the space. Really, they only had two love seats which wasn’t going to cut it for future team bonding at their place. At the moment it didn’t matter considering the boxes were spread across the floor around the couches.

“Are we having a sing-a-long while we put it all together?” Darcy asked.

“I still have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jan said.

“You’ll find out,” Carolyn said. “I’ve just got to hook my laptop up to your TV.”

“This is really going to mess up Thor’s intro to _Harry Potter_ ,” Darcy said. “But eh, it’s worth it.”

“Wait, it’s actually about _Harry Potter_?” Jan asked.

“And _High School Musical_ ,” Carolyn said.

“What the hell is that?” Tony asked.

“You are a grown up, why do you know about DCOMs?” Darcy asked.

“Excuse you, _Brink!_ came out when I was 18 and the next year all of the dope movies came out the next year. So I’ve got more of a claim on them than you do,” Carolyn said.

“What are you even talking about now?” Hank asked.

“Uh, no the best movies came out in 2002. _Double Teamed, Gotta Kick it Up, Scream Team_.”

“ _Zenon, Johnny Tsunami, Horse Sense, Smart House_ ,” Carolyn said.

“Okay, can we put the weird _Harry Potter_ movie thing already?” Clint asked.

“Are you really going to make us watch this?” Tony asked.

“Absolutely,” Carolyn said.  “Y’all get to building and I will oversee it all.”

The TV screen showed a black screen that faded in with a base line from a guitar. Tony continued to look baffled. “What?” he asked flatly.

“How exactly are we doing this?” Jan asked. “Assembly line? Everyone grab a box.”

“Read the instructions first and make sure you have all the supplies you need,” Darcy said.

Tony scoffed. “It’s all insert Tab A into Slot B,” he said. “You don’t need to look at the instructions.”

“Yes you do,” Hank said. “Someone should do the media center though. We can swap it out when this…thing is over.”

“This ‘thing’ is amazing,” Darcy said. “Just enjoy it.”

“Hank, you make the media center. Jan can oversee the bookshelves,” Natasha said.

“Alright, sounds like a --,” Jan said, but stopped, staring at the TV. “Do we really have to watch this?”

“Yes,” Darcy, Clint, and Carolyn all said.

 

Since Pepper had 45 minutes before she was needed for a face-to-face meeting and she knew there was pizza upstairs on Jan and Hank’s floor she ducked out of the office to steal some for lunch.

She, like Darcy, quite enjoyed living in the same building she worked in. Though, unlike Darcy, it enabled her to keep far later hours than she should at times for the West Coast offices or the Asian ones. Still, the ability to duck upstairs to Tony’s lab or their own home to see him in the middle of the work day was nice. Even if they hadn’t been dating at the time, she had spent years seeing him nearly every day for large chunks of time.

Once she’d taken over (officially anyways) as the CEO of Stark Industries there’d certainly been an adjustment to make when it came to working in an actual office again. She really hadn’t worked in an office the entire time she’d been Tony’s EA. A couple of times in the beginning maybe, but Tony much preferred to “work” out of his own home. Once she was the CEO she had to get adjust to an office, her assistant being just a few steps away rather than a phone call, and not seeing Tony what felt like 24/7.

Being able to see him during the day wasn’t what most people would call relaxing or calming considering something was usually at least slightly on fire. But for Pepper, it did relax her.

What she found in Jan and Hank’s living room was hardly relaxing though.

The first thing she noticed after she entered into the house proper was the noise. Jan was shouting, but she couldn’t understand what she was saying. That was due to the fact that the volume of some singing program was rather high and at least one person was singing along with it. It was some song about falling in love being dangerous? Maybe?

Then, as she got closer to the living room, she noticed the screwdriver sticking out of the wall and could understand what Jan was yelling.

“—you cannot just decide to upgrade my furniture! The bookshelves do not need spring touch activated doors or whatever it is you’re trying to do and the media center doesn’t even have drawers so it doesn’t need soft close –”

“Tony,” Pepper said evenly as she reached the living room. She stared at her grown ass boyfriend who was halfway through dismantling part of a complete bookshelf.

“Hi honey,” Tony said. “Whatcha doing here?”

“Jan and Hank’s furniture doesn’t need to be upgraded,” Pepper said.

“But it’s so boring. I can make it better!” Tony said. “The media center’s boring. I can hook them up!” He looked at Jan. “Why didn’t you just ask for built ins?”

Jan huffed and for some reason glared at Hank.

“Someone explain what this is,” Pepper said, pointing at the TV which now showed two people spinning around while others shouted “Portkey” at them. “Tony, you get me pizza. Someone explain why there’s a screwdriver in the wall.”

“Steve got angry at the furniture,” Jan said. “He’s in a furniture time out right now.”

Steve didn’t look like he was in time out given that he was sitting on the couch eating pizza. Pepper sat on the couch where her sister was and accepted the plate Tony gave her. “Explain,” she said, gesturing at the TV.

“It’s _A Very Potter Musical_. It’s amazing,” Darcy said.

“And who’s that,” Pepper paused trying to figure out what she was seeing. “Is that a giant cauldron cut out on the set?”

“It’s low budget which makes it even better,” Carolyn said. “It’s a college production.”

“Okay then,” Pepper said.

“I’m not complaining, but why are you here?” Tony asked.

“I don’t have a meeting for another forty minutes or so and there’s pizza here,” Pepper said.

“Wait,” Jan said. “Is that supposed to be Voldemort getting his body back? Is that guy supposed to be Voldemort?”

The man on the screen didn’t look at all like what Voldemort did in the movie trailers. For starters he was wearing tights, a cape made of taffeta or tulle that had some sparkles, and absolutely was not wearing a shirt of any kind.

“Is he tap dancing?” Natasha asked.

“Yes,” Clint said. “That’s what makes all of this amazing.”

“Sure,” Tony said slowly. He headed back towards the bookcase he had been trying to deassemble, in what he probably thought was stealth, but Jan smacked him.

“You are in furniture time out too. Sit down and watch…whatever’s going on now,” she said.

“Voldemort’s mind controlling Harry into dancing now that he’s got a body of his own and can dance again,” Darcy said through a mouthful of pizza.

“I mean, I understand this is a parody, but I’m still really confused,” Hank said.

“Then focus on the media center,” Jan said. “You’re almost done anyways.”

 

Much, much later all the furniture was assembled. Tony had continued to grumble and mumble and try to upgrade their furniture the whole time. When Jan had started looking for sofas (and a new coffee table for some reason) that fit in the space of the room he’d started offering suggestions about stores. While Hank wasn’t super thrilled with the idea of new couches, he could see that there were far too many people in the space for the amount of seats they actually had.

Once the assembling – Clint had eventually realized there were puns to be had there – was completed everyone disappeared to their own floors and spaces. Hank personally was exhausted and Jan seemed to be pretty tired too. They’d been either shopping for furniture or putting it together for hours now. He still wasn’t sure about the bookshelves and the media center was a lot larger than he wanted. But, he had to admit as he sat on the couch facing the tv, it didn’t look bad. It was mostly empty, which meant his fiancée was most assuredly going to go shopping again. Though, to be fair, they did have a rather extensive DVD collection that was currently sitting in boxes.

Darcy hadn’t been happy to be reminded that she had her own bookshelves to put together once the team bonding was over. Despite his displeasure with having to put any furniture together, Clint offered to help Darcy out. Jane had done something interesting with her face at that offer and Hank decided quickly that he did not want to have anything to do with whatever was going on with that.

**Author's Note:**

> Coming up next:  
> Tony tries to "improve" IKEA furniture and I try to include A Very Potter Musical without just spam quoting. 
> 
> I specifically rewatched the whole thing because it went viral in July/August of 2009.


End file.
